In order that a printer or a multifunction peripheral, each employing an electrophotographic technology, carries out a scanning process or a printing process, it is necessary to (i) stably drive a scanner motor and (ii) set a temperature of a fixing device to fall within a predetermined range. For this purpose, for example, before the printing process is carried out, a warm-up is carried out so that the fixing device has a temperature in the predetermined range.
Such a warm-up causes a user to wait until the warm-up is completed. In order to deal with this, there has been known a technique for reducing a waiting time period of a user. In a case of, for example, a copying apparatus, the warm-up is triggered by an operation, carried out by a user with respect to the copying apparatus, such as an input operation carried out via an operation panel, lifting up a cover of a scanner unit, or supplying a sheet to an auto feeder. Moreover, Patent Literature 1 discloses a method in which, before receiving print data from an external device, an image recording apparatus receives, from the external device, a particular command to warm up the image recording apparatus so that a warm-up of the image recording apparatus is started earlier.
In these years, a multifunction peripheral has been configured to be connected to a PC (personal computer) or the like via a communication network so as to carry out various processes. Specifically, the following technique has been developed. That is, a multifunction peripheral serves as a part of a total application system in such a manner that an application executable on an external information processing apparatus and a function of the multifunction peripheral are caused to operate in cooperation with each other (see Patent Literature 2).